Rentivo brings in $425,000 in crowd-funding for rental marketing tech

It appears crowd-funding can work for modest sums in the world of travel startups - with Rentivo raising $425,000 on the CrowdCube platform.

The amount is said to have exceeded the original goal by 36%, the vacation rental marketing and technology services company says.

The idea of using crowd-funding to support the company goes back to April last year when it claimed to have turned down global investors in favour of the community investment model, so that "customers and subscribers can own and shape the platform".

The plan to put the company on a platform such as CrowdCube within a few months didn't happen ("extremely busy summer and new clients - most of which are large managers - halted our efforts"), but the latest campaign ended earlier this year.

The funds will be used for product development, sales and marketing.

CEO and co-founder, Richard Vaughton, says:

"With the exponential growth in the home sharing economy and millions of property listings worldwide, it has become increasingly challenging for vacation rental owners and property managers to stand out from the crowd and attract new and repeat guests."

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He argues that the market is looking at "new ways for vacation rental property owners and managers to secure direct bookings and take more control over revenue generation instead of relying solely on online travel agencies, such as Airbnb, HomeAway and TripAdvisor, for business".

The SaaS-based platform combines a number of tools and services, including rental owner website design, payment technology, channel management, third party widgets and translation engines.